Play Winning Chess — Yasser Seirawan
A book to learn the basic principles of chess
Quick Summary
Play Winning Chess is an introduction to the moves, strategies and philosophy of chess, with clear explanations of the games, fundamental and instructive examples, question-and-answer sections, sample games and psychological hints.
My Thoughts
I took up chess again not long ago, and I needed a book to get me back on track. This book is perfect for that.
It starts with the basics, piece movements and notation, and develops into more advanced strategic principles and tactics. It explains force, time, space, and pawn structure.
The book is enhanced with quizzes and questions to practice what you learn throughout. It is obviously illustrated to visually represent the positions, as simply the algebraic notation can be a bit overwhelming for a beginner.
After reading this book, you will be able to understand why to play this or that move, even the moves of the grandmasters will be understandable. You will be able to easily analyze a position on a chessboard and understand who has the advantage.
The writing style is not perfectly formal and monotonous, which makes it a pleasant and lively read, interspersed with notes of humor.
At the end, some games are annotated with each move explained. I enjoyed this part even if I found the parts a bit too “simple”.
In short, this is a perfect first book to read about chess in order to start with a solid foundation. It won’t make you a professional, but it will help you win your first games, and will teach you principles that can be applied even at high level!
To Read or Not to Read
If you are missing some basic chess principles and feel like you are not making any progress, this book may be right for you. If you already have some experience, however, this book may not be useful to you. For reference, I have 1400 elo and I learned a lot from this book!
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